In our blog “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, we touched on the Scottish Government’s ambition, as championed in the draft Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4), to deliver a network of 20-minute neighbourhoods. But what are these, why do they matter, and what is needed to deliver the benefits of them?
NPF4 defines 20-minute neighbourhoods as a “method of achieving connected and often compact neighbourhoods designed in such a way that people can meet the majority of their daily needs within a reasonable walk, wheel or cycle (within approx. 800m) of their home…”, and in which “housing would be planned together with local infrastructure, including schools, community centres, local shops and health and social care”, with the aim being “to significantly reduce the need to use unsustainable methods of travel, to prioritise quality of life, help tackle inequalities, increase levels of health and wellbeing and respond to the climate emergency.” This reflects the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2020 – 2021 which introduced the concept as one in which, in addition to having the services set out above, people can, ideally, get to work within easy access of where they live, while also being places that people want and can afford to live, such that affordable housing must be part of these, as should access to green space and a local environment that encourages active travel.
For an indication of what such places might look like in practice, research, published in February 2021, identifies a number of services and facilities that could be found in a 20-minute neighbourhood, in both qualitive and quantitative terms, as well as how the accessibility of these should be assessed. This includes, for example, the quantity and quality of features to facilitate movement (i.e. foot and cycle paths, public transport, rationalised car parking and electric vehicle charging points etc.); civic spaces; work places; schools and other educational institutions; local shops and supermarket access; cafes/restaurants; local health facilities and services; housing; community and cultural facilities; opportunities for sports, recreation and play; natural spaces; streets which make passing through the area a pleasant experience; and opportunities for residents to have stewardship of the place they live. It is though important to remember that different people (and groups of people), and therefore different neighbourhoods, will of course have very different needs, making it difficult to be prescriptive as to what services and facilities are needed to meet their daily needs, and hence what a 20-minute neighbourhood should look like.
The research also looked at how close neighbourhoods across Scotland currently are to meeting the 20-minute definition, in terms of which the highest scoring neighbourhoods were in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh; this being a densely populated but relatively prosperous area which benefits from all of the features listed above other than rationalised car parking, electric vehicle charging points, and sports and recreation facilities. Conversely, less prosperous, and lower density areas tend to score less well, with this presenting a significant challenge to the application of the 20-minute neighbourhood concept in many places.
In addition to the provision of services and facilities to meet people’s daily needs, 20-minute neighbourhoods are, by definition, expected to be compact so that these are accessible within 800m, with RTPI research having identified a need for an average of at least 65 dwellings per hectare to make this work. Yet there are currently no nationally applicable density targets and, although these may be set locally, we are not aware of any local planning authority which has set the level this high. Further, even where planning authorities do have their own density targets, these seek to balance support for higher densities with a desire for new development to be consistent with any existing development in the area, with our experience being that more weight generally seems to be given to the latter than the former, and it is often difficult to get consent for the higher density developments that are clearly needed to make 20-minute neighbourhoods a reality, particularly within existing communities.
The relationship between density, prosperity, and how well a place functions as a 20-minute neighbourhood also means that questions have been asked about how well the concept relates to many rural communities, with Scottish Rural Action, for example, having raised concerns about the extent to which applying the concept to rural areas risks centralising services, leaving many isolated villages and settlements even more isolated, and less well connected, than they would have been before.
Taking the above into account, we would prefer to see a focus on communities themselves defining what their neighbourhoods look like, rather than having a centrally imposed expectation that they should fit the 20-minute model. And related to this, and whether looking to apply the 20-minute neighbourhood label or otherwise, we have been thinking about what the planning system can do to deliver the benefits expected of these (as outlined above), and would suggest that:
– if/where 20-minute neighbourhoods would be considered appropriate, these should be clearly identified in local development plans, with support for an appropriate density of housing to make these work;
– there is a need to move away from seeing city centres as just destinations, and towards these also being living neighbourhoods, with a range of services and facilities to serve residents’ every day needs, as well as those of visitors, with more city centre housing (with this in turn requiring planning authorities to support changes of use of empty city centre properties to residential use at appropriately high densities and with levels of amenity appropriate to the city centre location); and
– planners need to take a pragmatic and flexible approach when assessing planning applications, with a focus on delivering the benefits that well designed 20-minute neighbourhoods can without applying the concept overly strictly.
Overall, we certainly support the 20-minute neighbourhood concept in principle, but it is clear that action is required, and a flexible approach needs to be taken, to make sure that 20 can be plenty. Meantime, we await with interest to see how the Scottish Government progresses the idea.
Thanks for reading!
Pippa and Maggie
